Planet of Birds

A pair of poachers involved in the shocking shooting of 52 Red-footed Falcons Falco Vespertinus at Akrotiri, Cyprus, last year were yesterday fined a ?derisory? ?1,250 each, BirdLife Cyprus protested. The British Sovereign Base Area (SBA) court could have imposed a maxiumum penalty of ?17,000 and three years imprisonment. The massacre was the worst case […]

Two Sociable Lapwings Vanellus gregarius, satellite tagged in Kazakhstan last summer, have flown more than 5,000 miles to central Sudan, where they have spent the winter. Satellite tagging is adding rapidly to our understanding of the distribution of this Critically Endangered species outside the breeding season. read more at Birdlife

A partnership between BirdLife International and the Nagilogilo Clan of Vatuira has resulted in the successful eradication of Pacific Rats Rattus exulans from this internationally important seabird colony. Vatuira – a small island located 15 km from the coast of Fiji?s largest island Viti Levu – is an Important Bird Area (IBA) for several seabird […]

BirdLife International. Last year’s Rare Birds Yearbook photo competition was a huge success with more than 1,000 images being submitted and the best were presented in Rare Birds Yearbook 2008, with each published photographer receiving a free copy of the book. The photo competition for Rare Birds Yearbook 2009 has just been launched and will […]

Monitoring of shorebirds by Guyra Paraguay (BirdLife Partner in Paraguay) has resulted in the designation of the country?s first Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network (WHSRN) site. Baha de Asuncin – an IBA wetland just north of Paraguay?s capital city Asuncin – has been identified as a key site for the Near Threatened Buff-breasted Sandpiper Tryngites […]

BirdLife International has welcomed the measures announced by New Zealand Fisheries Minister Jim Anderton to reduce the number of seabirds killed in New Zealand’s fisheries. This follows an incident last year where a single longline vessel fishing in the Chatham Rise area of New Zealand was responsible for the deaths of 36 albatrosses including 12 […]

A flourishing wetland on Kenya?s northern coast is under serious threat from plans to grow vast amounts of sugarcane, partly for biofuel production. Developers want to transform nearly 20,000 hectares of the spectacular Tana River Delta, into sugarcane plantations with other parts of the Delta earmarked for rice. read more at birdlife

BirdLife International strongly condemns the arson attack on Sunday February 17, on three cars belonging to BirdLife Malta volunteers. The attack completely destroyed the three vehicles. Police have informed BirdLife Malta that the incident was most probably a criminal act. BirdLife regrets the ongoing conflict about spring hunting, over which Malta has recently been taken […]

The US Government has auctioned leases to drill for oil and gas in the Chukchi Sea off Alaska, putting at risk internationally important concentrations of seabirds, and a number of threatened bird species, including the Critically Endangered Kittlitz’s Murrelet Brachyramphus brevirostri. Audubon (BirdLife in the USA) says the Chukchi Sea is also home to one-tenth […]

Socotra is a spectacular group of remote Yemen islands in the Arabian Sea. With a long history of isolation the archipelago possesses a high level of endemism (species found nowhere else in the world), with over 300 unique plants, 21 reptiles and over 60 endemic butterflies and moths read more at Birdlife